Category: 1991

Below is the text of Mr Major’s comments on the G7, made in an interview held in London on Friday 19th July 1991.

QUESTION:

[Mr Major was asked about whether the third world countries had been ignored at the G7 conference].

PRIME MINISTER:

It is certainly not true, the countries in the world that will most gain from an increase in world trade, the opening access to markets and stability of inflation and growth are Third World countries and then of course, in terms of the very poorest Third World countries there was perhaps the biggest advance we have seen at any G7 meeting ever and that is the agreement to go a long way beyond Toronto terms in writing off the debt of the very poorest countries.

So I do not agree with that analysis at all and the point about opening market access is absolutely critical to the Third World, there is no point in the industrialised world providing aid to the Third World and then closing their markets to the products of the Third World, that is more damaging than anything else. So I think it was a very good summit for the Third World.

QUESTION:

[Mr Major was asked if the Soviets had left the G7 conference empty-handed].

PRIME MINISTER:

Only those who wanted to say that said that, only those who were pre-programmed to think that, that is not the view of Mr Gorbachev, it is not the view of the Soviet Union and they of course have the principal interest in this. What the Soviet Union wanted was to establish a continuing dialogue with the Group of Seven, that is what we have established. It was literally an historic meeting with President Gorbachev the other day and for the first time there is to be a direct dialogue between the G7, the seven most powerful industrial nations in the world, and the Soviet Union. Now I think that is good for the Soviet Union, I think it is good for the G7 and I actually think for wider political reasons it is very good for everybody else as well. It is the sort of dialogue between the major powers in the world that the rest of the world has asked to see for a long time.

QUESTION:

[Mr Major was asked if that would improve the short-term situation in the Soviet Union].

PRIME MINISTER:

The short-term crisis in the Soviet Union is a crisis that will be solved within the Soviet Union. What we have said is that we can enhance technical co-operation, we are going to enhance technical co-operation. I announced a very considerable enhancement, a doubling in fact, of our own Know-How Fund just yesterday, the day after President Gorbachev came here. And on wider matters it is prudent, most people think, to discuss these matters and to determine what needs to be done and that is what we are doing.

Below is the text of Mr Major’s statement in the House of Commons on the Group of Seven meeting, given on 19th July 1991.

PRIME MINISTER:

The Prime Minister (Mr. John Major) : With permission, Mr. Speaker, I will make a statement on the economic summit held in London from 15 to 17 July, and the subsequent meeting with President Gorbachev. I was accompanied at the summit by my right hon. Friends the Foreign Secretary and the Chancellor of the Exchequer. The economic declaration and the separate political declarations issued at the summit have been placed in the Library of the House.

The themes of this summit were “Building World Partnership” and “Strengthening the International Order”. Our common aim was to build on the movement towards freedom, democracy and the open economy which was the theme at last year’s Houston summit. I believe that we achieved valuable and productive results. In the political discussion, there was full support for our proposal for a United Nations register of arms sales. We agreed to consult on the guidelines that apply to conventional arms sales, and we agreed on restraint in the transfer of advanced technology weapons. We agreed also that donor countries should take account of military expenditure when deciding on aid programmes. We also agreed a number of steps in preventing the proliferation of nuclear, biological and chemical weapons. We agreed that we should make preventive diplomacy a top priority in the United Nations. We proposed the establishment of a United Nations disaster relief co-ordinator so that the United Nations can in future take the early action that has sometimes been missing in the past.

We agreed also on the need for confidence-building measures by both sides in the Arab-Israel dispute, including the suspension of the Arab boycott and of the Israeli policy of settlement in the occupied territories. We encouraged South Africa to pursue policies that will permit normal access to all sources of foreign borrowing. That is vital to enable the economic growth that will be necessary for a successful conclusion to the political negotiations.

In our debate on the world economy, we recognised increasing signs of economic recovery. These are welcome, but require us to maintain policies aimed at sustained recovery and price stability. This means prudent and vigilant fiscal and monetary policies, to bear down on inflation.

All the summit leaders recognised that the world cannot afford a failure in the Uruguay round of trade negotiations. We committed ourselves to completing the round by the end of this year. Crucially, we committed ourselves to remain personally involved to ensure that that happens to resolve any disputes. Action will be needed on services, intellectual property, trade access and agriculture. We reaffirmed our commitment to support reform in the countries of central and eastern Europe. For them, trade access is vital. We cannot encourage them to build market economies and then deny them a marketplace in which to sell their goods. The European Community has led the way in offering access through the association agreements which are now being negotiated.

We devoted a lot of time to the problems of developing countries and secured agreement on the need for additional debt relief measures for the poorest, most indebted countries, going well beyond the Toronto terms agreed in 1988. I have been pressing for this since I launched the Trinidad initiative as Chancellor.

At the summit, we committed ourselves to work for a successful United Nations conference on environment and development in June next year. By the time of the conference, we aim to have achieved, in particular, a framework convention on climate change and agreement on principles for forest conservation. We also hope to negotiate by the end of next year a framework convention on bio-diversity. We agreed also to support financially the implementation of the preliminary steps of a pilot programme for the conservation of the Brazilian rain forests.
Earlier summits have stimulated effective action in tackling the trade in illicit drugs. This year, we asked the Customs Co-operation Council–on the basis of an initiative by the United Kingdom–to intensify its work and liaise with international traders and carriers to curb the spread of drugs.

These global issues require the involvement of all. Developing countries and east European nations are playing an increasingly active part. But one great country has been until now largely detached from the international economic system. That is the Soviet Union. We had a productive, substantial session with President Gorbachev. It was an historic occasion. The emphasis was on informal, frank and direct discussions.

We reached agreement on six specific points. The first was special association with the International Monetary Fund and the World bank. Both the fund and the bank have a wealth of experience in helping Governments to work out their own economic reform programmes, especially in the crucial areas of fiscal, monetary and structural policies.

Secondly, the international institutions–the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development and the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development–as well as the IMF and the World bank–are to be asked to work closely together in their support of the Soviet Union. They can provide the Soviet Union with practical advice, know-how and expertise to help create a market economy.

The third point was intensified technical assistance. We believe that there should be greater co-operation in the following sectors in particular: energy, defence conversion, food distribution, nuclear safety and transport. Yesterday, I announced an increase in Britain’s know-how fund assistance from £20 million to £50 million.

The fourth point was improved trade access to markets for Soviet goods and services. This would also help to attract more inward private investment.

Fifthly, it was agreed that, as chairman of the summit, I should, on behalf of summit colleagues, follow up our meeting and visit Moscow before the end of the year to review progress. I look forward to doing so.

Sixthly, we agreed, in response to President Gorbachev’s invitation, that Ministers of Finance and of Small Business should go to Moscow for discussions with their Soviet counterparts. My right hon. Friend the Chancellor hopes to do so soon.

This was a landmark meeting with President Gorbachev. It will, I believe, be seen as a first step towards helping the Soviet Union to become a full member of the world economic community. I believe that it was a successful summit, and I commend the outcome to the House.

Below is the text of Mr Major’s statement given in London on Thursday 18th July 1991.

PRIME MINISTER:

Mr President, Mrs Gorbachev, colleagues and friends from the Soviet Union, My Lords, Ladies and Gentlemen. Welcome to luncheon today at Downing Street.

We have a long tradition in London of welcoming the leaders of revolutions. Today I believe we have the enormous privilege of welcoming a man who has led one of the most remarkable revolutions of our century, and you are, Sir, immensely welcome.

We take a great deal for granted. We have now come to take for granted freedom in Eastern Europe: we have come to take for granted German reunification: we have taken in our stride the demilitarisation of the Warsaw Pact; we have got used to talking of the Soviet Union as a friend and not as an opponent. And if may say so, since I see him here today, in Ambassador Zamyatin we have come to know a very true friend during his period in the United Kingdom.

The events of the last few years have shown triumphs of the human spirit, they owed much to the pressure for change from within the Soviet Union and from outside the Soviet Union. But I believe that there was more to it than that. There are occasionally in our history, in our world, not just our domestic history, individuals who shaped the course of that history and you, Mr President, are one of them. You have had in recent years the wisdom and the vision to see the trend of events, you have had the enormous courage to defy the traditions and dogma of half a century and you have had the political skill, the political determination and the courage to carry that vision into reality.

May I say, Mr President, also because I am delighted to see her here as a guest this afternoon, that my predecessor, Margaret Thatcher, has many of those same characteristics and I believe that the joint relationship that you and she struck up in the early 1980s played an immensely important part in the rapprochement between East and West over recent years and I believe history will record that fact very clearly indeed.

I believe it is very hard to over-estimate the transformation that this change in relationships has brought about to world affairs. Just about a decade ago every international issue was a battleground of ideology. The watchword those days seemed to be problem making and not necessarily problem solving. And yet as a result of these changes we have seen in the last few years, the position is dramatically transformed. In the Middle East, in Southern Africa, elsewhere we are enjoying a whole new experience of cooperation between East and West at solving problems and not creating them.

Perhaps in recent years the classic illustration of this was Iraq, an illustration of cooperation in the interests of safeguarding the communal peace. The Permanent Five members of the Security Council now work together as partners, it is I believe a most effective partnership and we hope it will be the driving force behind the regeneration of the United Nations in the years before us.

That transformation, Mr President, was reflected clearly and unmistakably in the meeting which you had yesterday with leaders of the Group of Seven, a meeting foreshadowed by my predecessor in her remarkable speech at Aspen last year. And last night we here in the very next room around the table here in Downing Street to talk about world issues.

People perhaps expect that. What, had they been present, they would not have expected quite so much was the immense extent to which the leaders there knew one another and enjoyed themselves as they discussed matters that were of both national and international importance. And I believe that closeness of personal relationship is a matter that can make more people sleep comfortably in their beds than would have been the case many years ago.

We recognise. Mr President, we present who are the well-wishers of the Soviet Union, we recognise that your country faces formidable challenges. formidable political challenges and equally formidable economic challenges and the vastness of the task before you makes it difficult for us to know precisely where best we can give our help. But I believe there is a common determination to help, not just in this country where I can promise you that determination is very real, but amongst all of us in the G7. And to do so not just in terms of words but in practical ways, through technical assistance, through links between the Soviet Union, the IMF, the OECD, the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development and the World Sank itself,

We recognise there is no magic prescription either within the Soviet Union or beyond the Soviet Union. But there is I think a world of difference in attitude, a world of difference between polite, dispassionate applause and the aggressive engagement of countries throughout the world who see themselves as we do, as friends of the Soviet Union committed to the success of the reforms in the Soviet Union.

And that partnership, that new and growing partnership characterises our bilateral relationships as well. Many of my guests here today, Mr President, are very closely involved in British cooperation with the Soviet Union, cooperation which can only grow as we wish to see it grow as a result of the processes of reform. Given the right environment, British companies will be keen to increase their investment, keen to help mobilise your country’s great reservoir of human skills and natural resources and you and many others in authority throughout the Soviet Union are I know striving even now to create precisely that environment.

The people in this room and millions I believe beyond it, Mr President, want to take part in your transformation to a market economy. I believe a lot of our own experience will be relevant to you as well, so we are helping in that transformation, in projects like food distribution, energy, financial services and the creation of small businesses. And British companies, I am delighted to say, are directly involved and the presence here of many of our leaders of commerce and industry illustrates that point very clearly. For this is a partnership in perestroika, a partnership from which both of us and both our countries have a great deal to gain.

No-one here has any illusions, a hard road lies ahead for the Soviet Union. Democracy, as Winston Churchill once memorably said, is the worst form of government except For all the forms we have tried in our history. You, Mr President, know that the Soviet Union has tried other forms and has found them wanting. And you, Mr President, had the courage to recognise that and to recognise the hardship and injustice which other nations had incurred as a result of that.

In today’s world the fates of East and West, of North and South cannot be divorced, they are bound together inextricably in the decisions that are made by the great nations. Yesterday in London we showed that that was understood fully in the West as well, in the meeting that you had with the leaders of the Group of Seven. It is my belief that that meeting marks a new chapter in Soviet relations with the industrialised Western world.

Today in London we are forging a further link in that relationship , a further link in the chain of Anglo-Soviet friendship and cooperation in the future. I believe it is a link that will be immensely warmly welcomed in this country and I have no doubt from what you have had to say to me this morning, immensely warmly welcomed throughout the Soviet Union as well.

My Lords, Ladies and Gentlemen, we have some very welcome guests here today, may I ask you to rise and drink to President Gorbachev and to Mrs Gorbachev, to the people of the Soviet Union and to friendship and partnership between our two great countries. The President and Mrs Gorbachev.

Below is Mr Major’s statement made on Thursday 18th July 1991 with the Russian President, President Gorbachev.

PRIME MINISTER:

Good afternoon! We have had a series of discussions today. The President and I had the opportunity of around two hours discussion before luncheon, further discussion through luncheon and with a large number of people from business, commerce and industry attending luncheon as well and after luncheon, we have had the opportunity of a Plenary Session with our Finance and Economic Ministers, our Employment Ministers and our Foreign Ministers as well, so it has been a very productive and worthwhile series of exchanges.

In our discussions today, apart from a range of bilateral matters, we have also discussed how we carry forward the Group of 7 remit and discussed some of the ground rules for my forthcoming visit to Moscow some time this side of Christmas. We have also agreed, in order to carry this debate forward, that Norman Lamont, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, will visit Moscow very speedily indeed. Dates are not yet finalised but I hope that the Chancellor will be able to go before the end of July to spend some time in the Soviet Union and to carry these discussions forward.

I should add also that a very senior mission from the Department of Employment will in fact be leaving for the Soviet Union this Sunday in order to examine small business and other business opportunities that exist between the two countries.

I also took the opportunity this morning in my discussions with President Gorbachev of announcing that we will be extending and increasing the Know-How Fund that exists to encourage small and growing enterprises in the Soviet Union. We will be increasing the time-scale of the Fund initially from two years to three years and doubling the size of the Fund to make a further small contribution towards assisting the establishment of a private sector and a liberal market economy in the Soviet Union.

Both the President and I saw these discussions as but the beginning of a continuing dialogue. We examined some very practical and very pragmatic ways forward and if I may speak for myself, I found them extremely useful discussions and I look forward to resuming them in Moscow later this year.

I will now invite the President to say whatever he would wish!

PRESIDENT GORBACHEV:

My task has been made easier by the fact that the Prime Minister covered the most important things.

I wish to add that we lost no time and at the beginning of our morning session we gave some thought to what we should do next so that there is practical continuation of the agreement that was reached yesterday at the G7 meeting.

The British-Soviet dialogue has a merit on its own and we are fully aware of the contribution that the British-Soviet dialogue that has been intensifying over the past few years made to the creation of the atmosphere that we witnessed these past few days and now I see that this dialogue will receive another no less important dimension given the fact that Mr. Major was instructed by the G7 to act in another capacity – not in another paid position but in another capacity. This is a new capacity which requires a lot of imagination and a lot of innovative approach to problems because what we are doing now is laying down bricks in the foundation of future cooperation.

We sensibly discussed all these matters with the Prime Minister and when we had the Plenary Session attended by our Ministers we were very pleased to note that our Ministers covered the same subjects so we have received a signal from the Seven and we started moving along and this is something that I welcome very much.

These past few days in the framework of the G7 meeting and also in the framework of the bilateral meeting we have seen a great desire on the part of the British side to provide a propitious atmosphere for our contacts and also to provide appropriate ground for our future joint work. I wish to thank the Prime Minister and his colleagues for a very active involvement in all that effort.

PRIME MINISTER:

Mr. President, thank you very much. I am afraid the President and I are due in the House of Commons in just four minutes so I will take just two questions if I may.

QUESTION:

[In Russian, not interpreted]

PRIME MINISTER:

The answer to that question is that Soviet-British relations are very good and they are getting better.

PRESIDENT GORBACHEV:

I may add that the business communities of our two countries have many projects lined up and the scope of our cooperation is likely to grow and intensify very fast. What we need is removal of the remaining impediments in the way of that cooperation. Any restrictions of the COCEM (phon) type restrictions does not allow us to use new technology projects that are being offered and of course no-one would be content with some outdated old-type projects.

QUESTION:

Why do you think Fidel Castro can continue to survive without implementing democratic reforms such as perestroika and glasnost and why does the USSR continue to aid Castro when he has openly criticised you and the countries from Eastern Europe for deviating from Communist teachings?

PRESIDENT GORBACHEV:

You know, I would do a lot of stupid things really if I were to sever relations with countries whose leaders criticised me and those stupid things that I would do would apply not only to international affairs but also to the domestic situation in my country so I would rather not do it.

My second point is that you must show respect for the Cuban people. I think the Cuban people deserve that and it is for the Cuban people to choose freely and to decide whatever questions they may face.